


Dead And Lovely

by vampirekiki



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Blood Magic, Bruce Wayne is Batman, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Ghosts, Jason Todd is Robin, JayTim Week, JayTimWeek2019, M/M, Magic, Past Character Death, Scary, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Supernatural Elements, Underage - Freeform, Underage Kissing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2020-09-19 07:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20327065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampirekiki/pseuds/vampirekiki
Summary: In a world where magic and supernatural powers coexisted with modern science, it was rumored that if you performed a blood ritual at midnight, then you could see the reflection of your soulmate in the mirror. Timothy Jackson Drake, a.k.a. Tim, tried this ritual due to lack of better judgment, and surprise, surprise, the ritual actually worked...the only problem being....the boy he saw in the mirror didn’t seem to bealive.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> (1) the blood ritual in this story is based on an actually-exists urban legend about some midnight ritual (with mirror) which supposedly can reveal the love of your life to you.
> 
> (2) the story is now named after a Tom Waits' song, but the story doesn't have much to do with the lyrics or the song, and I admit I’m running out of idea for titles.
> 
> (3) please do not expect quick updates, I’m not capable of this...
> 
> (4) inspiration for this story: Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood, a bit of Clive Barker’s Books of Blood series, and a bit of Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle series.
> 
> Warning: the writing is non-beta-ed!

Prologue

Cut your finger, used your blood to draw circled patterns on a round mirror, chanted a special spell five times when the clock ticked to twelve at midnight, then you would see the face of your soulmate reflecting on the mirror before you.

In a world where magic and supernatural powers existed and everyone possessed a soulmark on their bodies and said soulamrk was identical to the mark on their fated person’s skin, there was always an anxious curiosity to find out more about said soulmate, how they looked like, who they were, were they a man or a woman, etc, in some risky, unusual ways than simply waiting for destiny’s arrival.

Some people turned to magic to guide their way. 

Blood magic.

There was a ritual whispered among curious teenagers with magical talents, it was supposed to be some kind of urban legend, a blood ritual which was supposed to enable the participant a chance to see their soulmate's face before actually meeting them in the flesh and saw the matching soulmarks on each other’s skin with their own eyes.

It was also rumored that some lucky people did manage to find the greatest love of their lives through this midnight ritual, yet, on the other hand, there had always been rumors about using blood magic like this would only bring misfortune and bad luck.

As to the young Timothy Jackson Drake, a.k.a. ‘Tim’, he had heard about this rumored midnight ritual in the past, and he had always thought the whole idea was pretty stupid, unreliable. Magic, in general, was unpredictable enough, what if the image which appeared in the mirror was only magic playing tricks on you?

Then, why would he ever try to do something which he had always crossed off as a stupid idea?

Perhaps it had something to do with one Stephanie Brown, Tim’s best friend, and this secret smile of hers when she revealed to him that she had tried this magic out and saw the face of her soulmate appearing in the mirror. 

Perhaps it had much to do with how lonely, how restless he had been feeling these days…...

Turned out, playing around with suspicious rituals and shady magic was a mistake.

A huge mistake on his part.

Curiosity killed the cat, right? So why couldn’t he just stay put and not mess around with blood magic?

Because…before the mirror started glowing with its weird cold light in front of him, Tim had always thought the ritual wouldn’t actually work out.

Much to the young Timothy’s astonishment, he found out firsthand that the rumors were true, what Stephanie had told him was real, the magic actually _worked_. 

When the ritual was completed and the clock ticked to twelve midnight, Tim did see the image of his soulmate in the mirror.

The only problem being....the boy he saw in the mirror didn’t seem to be _alive_.


	2. Part 1: ‘Round Midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In one fatal moment, the cold surface of the round mirror seemed to melt under his fingertips and his hand was touching with the dead boy's for the very first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) I’d decided there are still Batman and Robin in this AU world, and the Joker too, of course!
> 
> (2) Yup, I changed the story title…not because the song in question has much to do with the story, but because I like Tom Waits’ music anyway.
> 
> (3) Because I was writing this story, I picked up [Emily Not, Not Gone by Cemetery Sighs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF7GClnB4dQ), and listened to it again. 
> 
> (4) this chapter is un-beta-ed, sorry about that!
> 
> (5) Well, things are getting worse in my home city, there may come a day I can't even use the internet anymore, but who knows? I will do what I can to the end. If you were interested in knowing what happens, here is the [link](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/28/world/asia/hong-kong-protest-photos.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes), and another [link](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/world/asia/hong-kong-protests-beijing.html).

Part 1: ‘Round Midnight

Everyone was born with some level of magical talent, Timothy Drake and his family were no exclusion. 

Once, magic used to play a fairly significant role in the development of societies and cultures, yet, ever since the Industrial Revolution and then the more recent Information Revolution, with the rise of technology and science, the importance of magic had decreased considerably. For example, when cell phones and the internet were so easily accessible to everyone, who would bother themselves with the fine art of telepathy and clairvoyance?

Still, it didn’t mean magic didn’t matter anymore. Magic and spells could still help you to perform many tasks. In school, teachers still taught their pupils the nature of magic and the basic principle of the supernatural powers and the use of many useful and ‘safe’ spells, they still lectured the kids with the importance of using magic in a responsible and safe way, etc.

Powerful mages were popular in many businesses and good illusionists were highly in demand in the showbiz; which meant if you could put your magical talents in the right direction and putting it into some good use, you could very much make a comfortable life for yourself.

On the other hand, the abuse and misuse of magic also weren’t unheard of, there were many criminals who used spells to rob and steal and do harm. There were also a group of people known as the ‘supervillains’---powerful mages and supernatural beings who used their talents to enable their crime spree.

In order to prevent these magical crimes, all around the globe, police departments tended to set up their special task forces and squads of magic-users to counter the supervillains. 

Outside of the police force, there were also plenty of supernatural beings and vigilantes who used magic to fight crime, seeking their own kind of justice and order, like the mythical vigilante known as Batman, Gotham’s very own local legend.

Tim could still recall when he was a young boy, his mother would teach him how to do small magic spells--of course, all of them were harmless spells and party tricks for a child’s amusement. Still, years had passed, there was still one trick that the boy remembered very clearly: the trick to see things which weren’t visible to most people, through a piece of round glass. 

It wasn’t complicated magic. Janet Drake would fish out the old piece of round glass from her dresser (she claimed this item was passed down to her from her mother), wiped it clean with a piece of cloth, placed the thin piece of framed glass before her son’s eye, then told him to concentrate. 

At first, Tim didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He questioned his mother, but the latter only smiled mysteriously at him and told him to keep looking.

So he tried, and he kept trying until _something_ started to appear at the corners of his eyes when he used the round glass.

First, it was just a moving shadow passing between the pieces of furniture in the living room, when no one else but Tim was inside.

Secondly, when he happened to point the round glass to a mirror and looking at said mirror through the glass, for a second Tim thought he saw his own reflection smirking back at him, when Tim put down the round glass out of shock, his reflection quickly went back to normal.

The boy could swear he didn’t do any of the smirking. It had to be his reflection doing it _all on its own_.

Startled by his own thought, the boy tried to convince himself it was only light playing tricks on him, yet at the deepest part of his heart, he knew what he had seen. 

The young Tim ran to his mother and told her what he had seen through the round glass she’d given him.

Turned out, his mother could see things too, her power wasn’t strong but it was still very much there. Perhaps Tim’s own talent was passed down from her.

Usually, people like Tim and his mother were called ‘psychics’, a person who could see things which normal people couldn’t see. 

After this incident with the mirror and the reflection in it, Tim started to see things he didn’t want to see from time to time. Ghostly images which were there for a second, then it was gone in the next. Objects which were there at first glance, only to vanish out of thin air later on.

Tim didn’t really like it when he started seeing those ghostly images, nor did his parents, so he stopped trying to use his magical talent to see things altogether. His mother’s round glass was put away somewhere, never to be seen again.

_Glasses, mirrors, water’s surface_, it should have been enough of a warning sign for Tim to realize he shouldn’t be messing around with magical ritual which had the use of mirrors and reflections in it.

****

Tim’s parents were soulmates and they loved each other deeply, it was just that...in this great love they shared between them, there didn’t seem to be much room left for their only son.

Things had been better when Tim was only a small child, his parents generally spent more time to care for him when he was still at a young age. However, once he grew older, soon his parents came to believe that their son was a child who was very much capable of looking after himself, it was when they started drifting off more frequently.

The boy was often left alone while his parents were busy being away from home to run their business in their family’s enterprises or went away to have luxurious trips to different exotic locations around the world.

Most of the time, Tim didn’t mind his parents’ absence so much. They hired a kind-heartened, nice old lady as a nanny to caretake him, they had always left him enough money to spend, they sent amazing gifts from around the world back home to him. As a bonus, he also had freedom which most children his age didn’t have. In return, Tim did everything in his power to make his parents _not_ to have reason to worry about him: he went to school on time, getting good grades regularly, spent his parents’ money in reasonable ways, etc.

As a result, his parents were happy to have a son who was so mature at such a young age, his independence had enabled them so much freedom to live their lives to the fullest.

Tim was happy too, at least...for most of the time.

However, in recent days, the weight of loneliness was dragging him down, bringing his spirit low. Especially when it seemed like everyone expected him had someone else to call their own, someone to go home to. 

Most people had their soulmarks presented during their adolescence period, therefore many of Tim’s classmates started to have their soulmarks appearing on their skin, some lucky youths even managed to find their soulmates.

Tim wasn’t particularly interested in romance and soulmates, still…with all the talks and excitement about soulmates and how to find them going on around him, as one of the few teens who had still remained markless, he felt rather left out. 

Then Stephanie Brown, a.k.a. ‘Steph’, a girl with outstanding magical talent, Tim’s best friend, had also found her own soulmate.

Well...technically Steph still hadn’t yet met said soulmate face to face, but according to her, she had performed a ritual which enabled her to see her soulmate through a mirror.

Unlike some other much more destructive and harmful magic, love spells and blood magic wasn’t exactly banned, still it was kind of being frowned upon, and certainly, these types of magic weren’t being taught in school either.

Yet, it didn’t stop curious teenagers to try using said magic and rituals.

Now, Tim had the spell and the instruction of said ritual in his hands. This supposed ‘spell’ was printed on a piece of A4 paper, Steph had absent-mindedly left it behind on the table during lunch break; which was understandable for her, Steph didn’t really need this spell anymore. She had already seen the face of her soulmate, and the blond girl was confident that she would meet her soon.

Yes, her. Steph’s soulmate was a girl.

When Steph was talking about this girl, she gazed at the soulmark at the back of her right hand---her mark appeared the day after she had performed the ritual---with so much tenderness and hope; like what she was looking at was a sweet _promise_ for something amazing, something truly great. 

Tim must admit to himself when his friend revealed she had seen the image of her own soulmate in the mirror and it was a girl, he did feel a bit disappointed. Because at the tiny corner of his mind, he had wished that maybe, just maybe, Steph and he were fated. They had been friends for such a long time, they cared for one another, they could have been comfortable together if fate had decided to give them that chance.

Turned out it wasn’t the case.

Turned out Steph had _someone else_ for her. Someone who was out there, waiting for her, even searching out for her right at this very moment. Steph even had her newly appeared soulmark on the back of her hand to prove this.

In comparison, Tim had no one. Surely he did have friends he could go chatting with, he could even call his parents and talk to them occasionally, but they just wouldn’t understand.

In the end, he took the piece of paper Stephanie had left behind and brought it home with him.

As the night drew deeper, Tim found himself standing before a large round mirror in the study of his parents’ mansion, with a single candle was placed on top of the desk in front of the mirror. 

The clock was ticking, it was only 15 minutes away from midnight, the youth lit the candle, then he turned off the light, leaving most of the room in darkness.

Tim then fished out a cutter from his pocket, though the instruction mentioned using a knife for the ritual, this time, the youth thought a cutter would have to do.

10 minutes before midnight, Tim used the cutter to slit his fingertip open, he frowned as the pain hit him, and the smell of blood made him almost feel sick, but he forced himself to cut a bit deeper. 

Taking a deep breath, Tim reminded himself to stay calm, then he pressed his bleeding finger on the surface of the mirror, and started to draw patterns on it.

It was common knowledge that some of the magic could only be activated by using blood, saliva and other body fluids, still…...pressing your bleeding finger on the cold surface of a mirror to draw patterns really wasn’t something on top of Tim’s ‘to-do list’.

Once he was finished, Tim looked down at the wrinkled A4 paper he held in his hand, at the bottom of said paper there was a spell which supposedly would activate the magic, Tim looked at the printed 'spell', and noticed the wording of it looked like it was a mixture of misspelled Latin and some unknown syllables.

Misspelled Latin or not, that was it, supposedly once you chanted the spell five times before midnight in front of a mirror, under the dim light of a lit candle, the mirror would reveal your soulmate to you.

As skeptical as he was, Tim forced himself to repeat the spell five times under his breath before time ran out.

The candle was half used up by now, but the only reflection in the mirror was Tim’s.

So, nothing happened.

Tim was somewhat relieved, though. Perhaps his magical talent wasn’t strong enough to make the ritual work. Despite Tim’s many talents, Stephanie was still a more powerful magic-user than him.

Perhaps he would tell Steph all about his failed attempt and laugh it off together with her tomorrow when he went back to school.

He was about to turn away from the mirror when all of a sudden, the blood-stained patterns on the mirror started to glow.

Startled, Tim unconsciously took a step back, all around him the darkness inside the room seemed to _thicken_, swallowing everything up and left nothing but the mirror in front of the boy. The darkness was so thick now that he couldn’t hear any sound from the outside but his own racing heartbeat.

Instantly Tim wanted to run away, but his feet seemed to be rooted to the floor and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the mirror, and the strange glow was growing stronger every second.

Under the strange glowing light, Tim’s own reflection in the mirror seemed to fluctuate for a moment before it vanished entirely, leaving the entire mirror to reflect nothing but full darkness.

Tim was trembling when he saw a spot of fleeing green light appearing at the corner of the mirror.

At first, it was only a tiny spot of light, then it grew bigger, forming a human shape as it went. It was as if something coated by a haze of ghostly green light was slowly making their way toward the mirror’s surface.

It was as if the mirror had become some kind of a doorway and there was a dark _space_ opening up beyond the mirror, and now, something, or _someone_ from this ominous dark space was limping closer and closer to Tim’s world.

Then the boy’s ears started picking up a new sound, a groan. Like someone was in agony, but he couldn’t make out where the noise came from. In fact, it seemed to be coming from every direction.

Before he could react, the dark figure had moved _right behind_ the mirror frame.

The dark figure, surrounded by the ghostly green light, was finally there right there in the other side of the mirror, not five feet away from the dumbfounded Tim. 

Like any other person, Tim had had some vague thoughts about the soulmate he might meet one day, he had wished for someone who was nice in personality, kind-heartened; someone whose physical appearance was his preferred type, but he honestly didn't expect to see something like _this_.

It was a boy, seemingly a bit older and bigger in build than Tim himself. The boy’s short, messy dark hair drifting over a bloodless face, deathlike pale skin stained with threads of blood. The strange red and green clothes the figure wore were torn in different places and darkened by even more dried blood and other stains. That face...that feature...it would have been handsome to look at if it weren't for those eyes. in where normal orbs should be were all blackened over from one end to another.

Tim wanted to scream, but nothing came out from his mouth. Those eyes and the bottomless darkness within them were a horrifying sight and it made him felt like as if all the warmth had been sucked out from his body. 

Whoever the person was in the mirror, he was definitely. not. alive.

Was it a ghost? A demon? Tim couldn’t even start to make sense of what he was seeing. He thought he was going to pass out when he saw the lips of the ghostly figure in the mirror began to move and a hoarse voice filled his ears.

“Is anyone here?”

Despite the abnormal dark eyes, the dead boy seemingly at least could still sense Tim’s presence.

Too shocked to form any word, Tim didn’t answer.

“...please...it’s so cold...” The boy in the mirror pressed one bloody palm experimentally against the mirror surface, then pushed hard with both his hands when he felt the invisible resistance.

“Help, help me!” Realizing he was trapped, the boy screamed louder, the green light surrounding him seemed to also grow stronger; and his dark gaze was now fixing straight at Tim. _“Save me!”_

Much to his shock, Tim found one of his arms slowly rising up to touch the mirror’s surface, his mind was yelling at him to stop, but it was as if his limbs had a will of their own.

In one fatal moment, the cold surface of the round mirror seemed to melt under his fingertips and his hand was touching with the dead boy's for the very first time.

The other boy gripped Tim’s hand tightly, without hesitation, and his touch was icy cold.

No living person could have such a cold touch, the boy was definitely not alive.

This time, Tim passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think it's a well-written chapter, but I'm running out of energy, so goodnight.


	3. Part 2: Real Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And there was just something utterly sad and _broken_ about the dead boy sitting alone by a stone gargoyle, with the cloudy sky looming over him, and a whole darkened, lifeless cityscape spreading before him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is named after a Tom Waits' album.

Part 2: Real Gone

Tim woke up on the carpeted floor with a terrible headache hammering against his skull and the daylight seeping into the room through the curtains actually hurt his eyes. Groaning in discomfort, he dragged himself off the floor and stumbled on a nearby sofa, snapping his eyes shut, then counting from one to ten slowly until his headache dulled to a tolerable level and he could find the center of his being again.

Finally, he raised his head and forced himself to look at the round mirror hanging on the wall, and was startled to see the mirror in question was free of any stains of the ritual from the previous night. Not a drop of dried blood was left on its surface, no glowing light either. It was as though nothing had happened.

But Tim wouldn’t be fooled so easily. The boy had never been the type to lie to himself, especially not when he could look down and saw the reddened cut on his finger--the cut he had created in order to draw blood. Not so far away on the carpet, was the crumpled paper with the spell printed on it. 

Plus, when he could look down at himself, he could see a red and black colored mark on the inside of his upper arm.

Instantly he knew it was his soulmark.

Tim blinked, blinked again, then kept blinking, wishing the mark would disappear, but in the end, it was still very much _there_.

His soulmark had appeared, the same as Steph said hers had presented shortly after she performed the blood ritual in order to see the face of her soulmate.

He had really done this, he had performed the blood ritual, but did it mean what happened after he chanted the spell was also _real_?

Before discovering the soulmark on his skin, Tim still wished to deny what he had seen during the blood ritual, the dead boy in the mirror _couldn’t_ truly be his soulmate, the scary image he had seen must be the result of magic running out of control, or perhaps he had gotten the ritual entirely wrong and it showed him something else instead...he would make up any excuse in order to convince himself, just to avoid admitting the awful truth.

Goodness, his soulmate wasn’t...alive.

He really needed to calm down and put his act together but he couldn’t. The mental image of what the mirror had revealed to him made him shivered. In his 13 years of short life, he had never experienced something like this, overwhelming, terrifying.

When he heard people talking about the first meeting with their soulmates, it wasn’t like this. Supposedly it was always something warm, tender and sweet; something that made bright rainbow colors to explode all across your universe. 

What Tim had experienced was nothing like this.

It was common knowledge that ghosts existed, spirits existed, walking dead existed, demons existed, but not everyone could easily come into contact with those creatures from the other side. Tim had never heard any of his family members and friends having any in-depth contact with those creatures, plus the adults would always discourage curious teens to make contact with the underworld and its residents, advising them to stay as far away from ghosts and spirits as they could. 

Despite his family background, Tim always considered himself an ordinary person. So why couldn’t he meet his soulmate just like everyone else did? Meeting them in a block party, in the middle of watching a baseball match, in a cafe, on the street, in school, or one of those friends-turned-out-to-be-soulmates cliches. 

Just why couldn’t any of these scenarios be his case?

How he wished the whole thing was only a bad dream, or an illusion, other than it was the mirror revealing a sad, horrible, icy reality to him.

His soulmate was dead.

****

Too shaken up by what he had experienced, Tim called in sick that day. A couple of his friends had called him in concern during noon, they even offered to come over after school, wanting to make sure he was alright; but Tim turned them down from visiting, not in the mood of seeing anyone. 

Instead, the boy hid in his bedroom and tried to make sense of what he had seen last night.

The Drake estate was deserted, only Tim was at home; his caretaker, Mrs. Mac, had taken a day off since yesterday afternoon, and she would only come back at dusk. 

Tim sighed, if only Mrs. Mac was home with him last night, perhaps he would never try out the blood magic when someone else was also at home.

What was done, was done. So Tim forced himself to focus on what he knew about soulmates, the soulbond between them and...what might happen after the death of a soulmate.

As sad as it might sound, it wasn’t particularly _rare_ for people to lose their chance to meet their soulmate to an untimely death. Accidents happened every day, the same went with illness, murder and natural disasters, many unfortunate people had woken up one day only to discover the soulmarks on their skin had faded away, along with the death of their soulmates.

Soulmarks could only last as long as both parties were alive; when one person in the bond died, the remaining other would be left with only a white scar where the soulmark used to be. Then these people would have to live with the knowledge that their soulmates had passed away even before they could meet them, they would have to bear the sorrow of not knowing who their soulmates were, what had happened to them. 

Your soulmate dying before you could meet them and the fading of the soulmark was, in fact, a sorrowful thing, yet it wasn’t something which was unheard of. Yet...after the shock slowly faded away, Tim noticed something was very different in his own case, there was an important and mysterious difference.

For one thing, his soulmark didn’t fade, instead said soulmark presented only after he saw the ghostly image of his….th…_the dead boy_. Plus even up to this very moment, his black and red soulmark still remained vivid.

The presence of his soulmark actually made denying what he had seen a lot harder.

His soulmark had presented, he had seen the face of his soulmate, but there was one little problem here: his soulmate was also a dead person. 

So, the soulmark on his arm wasn’t going to lead him to anything or anywhere.

Such revelation could be devastating to most people, but Tim, despite his young age and his fragile-looking appearance, was a strong and rational person.

The boy tried to convince himself, many people had managed to move on after the death of their soulmates, so there was no reason to think he _couldn’t_ manage the same. There was no reason for him not able to overcome this misfortune.

However, his own reasoning couldn’t make the empty feeling in his heart go away.

****

As expected, Mrs. Mac came back at dusk, when Tim came up to greet her, she asked the boy whether he had eaten, it was when Tim realized he had forgotten to eat for almost an entire day.

After the boy ate the sandwich fixed up by his caretaker, night had already fallen. As much as he wanted to deny it, but the night was making him uneasy.

When he walked past his parents’ study, the boy turned on the light and peered inside the room, thankfully nothing seemed to be out of place. More importantly, the round mirror on the wall also seemed to remain normal, like any ordinary mirror _should_.

Still, Tim quickly shut the door and locked it, just to be on the safe side. 

That night, he went to bed early, hoping to find some peace in sleep.

He tucked himself to bed, closed his eyes, then fell asleep, but the next thing he knew, he was standing in the middle of a dark city.

The boy gasped, he had no idea where exactly was he and what had brought him to this place. A place that looked very much like Gotham, but it was far _worse_ than the Gotham he knew.

Despite its many shortcomings and social problems, the Gotham City he knew was a place full of _life_, with people everywhere, with moving cars filling the streets, so much sound and different noises coming from every direction, the whole city was always vibrating with energies. 

But not in this city, this city was _dead_.

Everywhere he looked, Tim couldn’t see a living soul. The streets were empty, as with the buildings on either side of the streets. There were traffic lights and signals but none of them were in working order. There were some cars parked on the sides of the road but all of them looked abandoned, their drivers nowhere in sight. There also was no sound to indicate there was any human activity going on, in fact, the air was so thick and heavy around the boy he found it difficult for him to breathe, and there was no wind. 

“Hello?” The boy called out experimentally, to no one in particular. “...is anyone here?”

The sound of his voice echoed off into the deathlike silence and it felt _wrong_, and he wasn’t surprised when no one answered his call.

He looked up to watch the sky above, only to see it was filled with heavy grey clouds, the whole city was shrouded in semi-darkness, but surprisingly, Tim could still see things clearly despite the lack of natural daylight and street light. 

As his eyes lingered on the city’s skylines, something caught his attention.

It was a small haze of green light hovering on the rooftop of one of the buildings.

The same ghostly green light he had seen when the mirror revealed his soulmate to him.

Tim’s heart throbbed at the thought. But...it was impossible, right?

Once again he scanned his surroundings, everywhere he looked, the city and its empty streets and buildings seemed to expand to all directions. There was no end, no exit in sight.

Taking a deep breath, Tim started to walk toward the building with the tiny ball of green light still hovering on its rooftop.

****

The trip from the ground floor to the very rooftop of the building in question wasn’t easy. Once he got into the lightless lobby, Tim did try to push the button of the elevator, but as expected, the machine was dead.

So he had to climb up the staircases, all fifteen floors of them, with hardly any source of light to guide his way. He was tired and sweaty when he finally got to the top floor. The staircase had led him to a closed door, a fire exit at the top of the stairs.

Now, standing before this closed door, Tim was almost afraid, afraid that the flash of green light he saw would disappear when he finally pushed the door open and got to the rooftop, afraid that he would be trapped in this dead mirror image of Gotham forever...

But he was here and he must take the step. The boy tried the handle and was surprised to find it wasn’t locked, he twisted the handle and pushed the door open, then stepped into the rooftop.

At first glance, the place seemed to be deserted, but after Tim’s eyes adjusted to the half-light surrounding the area, he managed to catch sight of the ghostly haze of green light again. The light was lingering around one of the large stone-made gargoyles seated at the edge of the rooftop. 

And in the middle of this light, was the silhouette of a familiar shape of green and yellow.

Even from a distance, Tim could tell it was the dead boy he had seen before in the mirror, but now the boy was sitting next to a large gargoyle, with his back to him.

The dead boy didn’t seem to be aware of Tim’s presence. He merely sat there at the edge of the rooftop without any movement, surrounded by the ever-presenting fading green light, seemingly staring into space. 

As to what the other boy might be looking at, Tim had no idea.

Tim stood completely still as he watched the figure from afar, for the longest time he felt as though he had been rooted to his spot, unable to move a muscle, unable to make a sound. The longer he watched the other boy, the more sadness took shape in his heart; the dead boy was wearing some kind of yellow cape which hung from his shoulders but it was dirty with suspicious dark red stains and most of the cape had long been torn into threads. 

And there was just something utterly sad and _broken_ about the dead boy sitting alone by a stone gargoyle, with the cloudy sky looming over him, and a whole darkened, lifeless cityscape spreading before him.

Though Tim was still afraid, he still wanted to know where this place was, why he was here, he still had so many questions needing to be answered. 

More importantly, he desperately wanted to know who this other boy was, and what had happened to him to bring him to this place.

Taking a step forward, Tim called out. “Hello?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think?
> 
> PS: you can also visit me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/mizakalili)!


	4. Part 3: Darn That Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You are here, and you are _real_. I can't believe it but you're real!” The dead boy nearly shouted when he came face to face with the shorter boy, his voice painfully desperate, his movements surprisingly energized for a dead person. “You look so _bright_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) This chapter is named after a music piece by Chet Baker, just like Part 1.
> 
> (2) the idea of a dead city comes from Clive Barker’s short story _In the Flesh_, from his Books of Blood series vol. 5.

Part 3: Darn That Dream

“Hello?”

At the sound of his voice, the dead boy’s shoulders tensed visibly, then slowly, with agonizing slowness, the boy turned his head back toward Tim. 

Tim could now see the dead boy’s eyes, they were still the same pair of dark hazy voids, and they were still terrifying to look at.

For a moment, Tim had this irrational fear the boy was going to turn around and attack him, all scary crazy zombie style like you could see in horror movies.

But the boy didn’t. His tensed expression softened with something akin to surprise and…_wonder_. Then The boy jumped down and ran toward Tim at once. But before he could get close, Tim saw the dead boy’s form quenched out of existence. The boy blinked in disbelief, not knowing what to think, but then the air before him started sparking with electrons, instantly the dead boy was snapped into being again, this time the other boy was _standing right in front of him_, not three feet away.

It took everything in Tim to not take a step back when the dead boy took yet another huge step forward and stepped right into Tim’s personal space.

“You are here, and you are _real_. I can't believe it but you're real!” The dead boy nearly shouted when he came face to face with the shorter boy, his voice painfully desperate, his movements surprisingly energized for a dead person. “You look so _bright_.”

Tim didn’t know what to say. He looked…_real? Bright?_ No one had ever described him like this before, but it wasn’t like he had the chance to communicate with dead people and learned their way of thinking in the past.

“...huh, you thought I’m not…_real_?” As lame as it might sound, this was the best Tim could muster after a brief moment of struggling to form a reply.

Regardless of how uneasy Tim felt about coming face to face with his not-so-alive-_soulmate_, he had called out for the latter first, so he must stay calm. Plus he had also heard of ghosts and spirits being attracted to fear and weakness too, so it would be wise to keep his cool.

“I didn’t know, I wasn’t sure.” The dead boy shook his head before he started to describe his own version of his first encounter with Tim. “When I first saw you...everything felt…_unreal_. I thought I felt _a pull_...like a force pulling me to some destination, then I saw you...you are like a ray of light in complete darkness.”

Then he reached out a hand, trying to touch the shorter boy as if he couldn’t stop himself, there was also something _hungry_ in those dark, bottomless eyes when he fixed his eyes on Tim. This time Tim stumbled backward. He truly wasn't ready to receive a dead person's touch again.

As if sensing Tim’s fear, the boy drew his hand back, something akin to embarrassment flashed through his pale face. "Sorry... I don't mean to scare you..."

"It's okay..." Tim replied, but carefully kept his distance. "So...who are you?"

The dead boy thought for a long moment before replying. "’ Name is Jason. And you are?"

"Tim." He knew this question would come. The dead boy--_Jason_\-- would want to know his name, in exchange of his own. So Tim offered his own name in return, yet he skipped his family name, remembered to be cautious when dealing with a supernatural being. Knowing it would be unwise to reveal too much of himself to a dead person. 

Many people would tell Tim it was already risky enough to reveal part of his name to a dead person. Many believed that giving your name to the supernatural creatures would establish some kind of connection or even some kind of a claim. 

"Tim." the older boy whispered as if tasting the name. "And you're alive."

"Yes, I am." This exchange of words was surreal to Tim. But it was the very first time he talked to a dead person so it was only normal for him not knowing what to say.

The last time he checked, Tim was definitely still very much alive, but now...as worrisome as it sounded, he wasn't so sure anymore.

If this dead cityscape was, in fact, _the land of the dead_ and Tim had somehow found his way here, then did it mean he was also somehow…_not_ alive?

This thought made him...uneasy. So it was strangely comforting to hear from a dead person’s words that he was in fact, well, not dead. That was Jason’s words, he’d called Tim ‘alive’, and ‘bright’.

Which was just the opposite of Jason’s existence, he was broken, lifeless, darkness seemed to be following him and he was surrounded by a haunting green haze.

For as far as he could remember, Tim had taken _living_ for granted, just like so many people else. However, what he had seen last night, and the sight of Jason in front of him, made him suddenly realize how _precious_ having the chance to stay alive truly was. 

Tim didn’t know what had happened to Jason, but from all the bloodstains he could see, it must be something horrifying, painful. No one should die like this, at such a young age.

Yet, Tim also knew how risky and…_rude_ it was to ask the older boy about his death, so he moved on to the next subject.

“Do you know how can we get out of here?”

Jason stared back at him with his dark, bottomless eyes, those eyes could very well be a twin pools of darkness. “No.”

“You...you mean there is---”

“I mean there is no way _out_.” Jason replied flatly, waving his hands. “Believe me, I tried.”

The unbearable weight of those words took a few more seconds to sink in completely, but ice-cold fear shot down Tim’s spine in a much faster speed. “But what is this place?”

“Oh, you still have to ask?” A humorless grin spread across Jason’s bloodless face, Tim could see a drop of malice and mockery bleeding into the talker boy’s feature. “It’s the land of the dead, the underworld, afterlife, _hell_, and most of all, _Gotham_.”

Tim blinked, what Jason had explained to him did make sense, but at the same time, it didn't. “So...we are trapped here?”

The dead boy shrugged. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t get out.”

“How...how come?!” Tim could no longer suppress his disbelief and worry.

Jason smiled sadly. “ Have you ever heard of people escaping from their afterlife?”

The younger boy swallowed hard. The fact was, he hadn't heard of many people getting out from the land of the Great Beyond. Usually, people just kind of...stayed dead when their time was up.

“But...there has to be a way!” Tim burst out, he was more talking to himself aloud than aiming his question at his company. He wasn't dead yet, he didn't remember his own life ending, this had to be some kind of a mistake!

“It...isn’t so bad here. It’s quiet, ” The taller boy replied quietly, as he looked down at the bloodstains on the front of his clothes, his voice barely above a whisper. “And it doesn’t hurt anymore, nothing hurts here.”

Tim followed the other teen's gaze, then something hit him.

The dried blood stains on Jason’s outfit had prevented him from looking and thinking more closely, but now when he forced himself to look at the details of the older boy’s clothing, something seemed to click: the damaged yellow cape, the green gloves, the ‘R’ on the front of Jason’s custom, suddenly everything seemed to have an explanation.

Previously the younger boy only had some vague guesses that Jason might be some kind of teenage performer, someone who worked on the stage for some sort of performance, like this Mister Miracle guy Tim had seen on TV, this would explain the unusual, kind of outlandish outfit he wore, but now…

Tim couldn't help staring hard at the 'R' on the older boy's outfit.

Could it be…?

“Wait a minute...” Tim spoke up as things became clearer to him, his hands unconsciously tightened into fists out of nervousness. “Jason...can it be…? You...you’re…_Ro---_”

Unbeknownst to Tim, his nervous hand movements had stretched the wound on his finger open again, he didn’t notice when a single drop of his own blood slipping down to his fingertip before dropping to the floor near his feet. 

The only warning Tim got was a sudden surge of raw energy rippling through the air between him and Jason. Everything before his eyes seemed to turn bright red for a second before every image before him--including Jason’s shocked face---vanished.

“---_Robin!_” 

Tim shot up from his bed still covered in cold sweat, with a name chopped out of his gasping mouth. His eyes snapped open not to be greeted by the scenery of the horrible dead city, instead, he was back in his own bedroom, on his own bed. His room was bathed in the blueish semi-darkness of the twilight hours, dawn still had yet to arrive.

Still breathing hard, the boy looked for the digital clock on his nightstand, it told him it was only 4:00 AM.

It was a dream.

It must be a dream, but it all looked and felt so very _real_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just can't resist mentioning Mister Miracle here...


	5. Part 4: Green Grass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Was he dreaming again? Or was he not? Which part of this little encounter had taken place in reality, which part of it hadn’t?
> 
> Still so many questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) This chapter is named after a song called ['Green Grass'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTclisT6pHg), one of the goodies from Tom Waits.
> 
> (2) The song that I kept listening to when writing this chapter was Buck Tick’s [Elise noTame ni](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d3TfDYfirY) (For Elise).

Part 4: Green Grass

It all happened so fast, in one second the boy, _Tim_ was there in front of him, then out of the blue, his outlines become blurry like he was slowly fading out of existence.

“No! Please don’t--” When Jason realized what was happening, he yelled, as if it could stop what was happening before him, but it was too late, in the next second, Tim was _gone_, simply gone.

“--don’t go--”

In a flash, the boy disappeared right in front of Jason, confusion still frozen on the smaller boy’s face before he vanished completely, leaving Jason alone in the dead city. 

The moment the boy was gone, it felt like a part of his being had just been ripped right out from him. It felt like a ray of light had been snapped out, leaving him alone in the dark once again.

Jason had been left in this cold, lonely place for an unmemorable time, he hadn’t seen anyone for too long...the solitary and despair was seriously doing damage to his sanity.

Before he died, Jason could never imagine his afterlife would be like _this_. When his mother passed away when he was just a small boy, people told him she was ‘in a better place’ now. All good people went to ‘a better place’ when their lives on this world came to an end, or so they said. So why didn’t he go where she had gone to? Hadn’t he done enough good things in his short life to earn himself a place in heaven or paradise or whatever final resting place everyone said would be there waiting for the good people? So...why did he end up _here_, instead?

It was so unfair, just like many other things in his life.

So deep his bitterness ran, the dead boy almost missed the one thing Tim had left behind. The only evidence Jason didn’t imagine the whole incident up because this dead city was finally driving him crazy.

When he happened to cast his gaze to the tiled floor, there was a drop of blood remained on where the shorter boy once stood. The tiny drop of red liquid shone like a piece of ruby against the greyness of this dead world. 

Unthinkingly, the dead boy dropped to his knees and licked the tiny drop of blood off the dusty tile floor. 

Ever since his death---_murder_, Jason could taste something for the first time.

The taste of life.

That feeling...gave him _hope_.

Death should be the end, there should be no hope left, but now…...hope was blossoming within him. It was only a small glow, but it was enough for the time being, keeping him warm from the inside, where his beating heart once used to be.

But the boy was gone.

_Tim._

Tim was _real_ and he would see him again.

He must keep this hope alive.

_Alive._

Suddenly, Jason began to feel very tired.

It was strange. Dead people didn’t sleep. Jason hadn’t closed his eyes ever since he…_died_, but now his eyelids were shutting all on their own as sleepiness wrapped itself around his limbs, slowly putting him under.

_“Please come back,”_ The boy whispered the words like it was a prayer before he slipped into slumber. 

****

Tim went back to school, supposedly recovered from his supposed ‘illness’. Instead of focusing on his study and interacting with his friends, Tim spent most of the time trying to recall what he knew about the afterlife. 

As mentioned before, most people--_mortals_\--stayed dead after their time was up, still a small number of people did manage to return from the Great Beyond through different methods, many pieces of information about what the afterlife was like had been recorded through these people and their Near-Death Experiences. 

Supposedly different people saw different things after they moved on from this world to the next one. Many of those witnesses saw their dearly departed loved ones coming up to greet them, some saw a tunnel of light, some saw the images of different gods and/or goddesses: Jesus Christ, Buddha, Mother Gaia, Lord Shiva, Hine-nui-te-pō, the list went on and on. 

On the other hand, some other people saw the much darker versions of the afterlife, these witnesses reported seeing _hell_ with terrifying monsters and demons, some described the afterlife as a gloomy existence of limbo, some saw a dark realm of nothingness and despair, some saw the Dry Land awaiting them, this list also went on and on. 

Apparently there were many different versions of the afterlife, and hardly anyone was sure _which_ version of it would await them when it was their time to depart. There was no conclusive answer as to what the afterlife was like, and exactly where the souls would eventually go to.

It sounded to Tim that there might be various possibilities, various realms and dimensions when the Great Beyond was concerned. 

Thinking about all these didn’t bring the boy any closer to solve--or even _understand_ the problem he had at hand. Perhaps he should find someone to talk to about these strange events he’d experienced.

Steph would have been a logical choice, but he could already predict how she would react once he told her. The girl would be alarmed and horrified, she would be upset with herself for ever mentioning the blood ritual to Tim, she would advise him to forget about the ritual and everything related to it. She might even suggest seeking help from…_exorcist_ or some other types of expert along this line.

Steph meant well, but Tim wasn’t so sure her aid was what he needed at the moment. 

Or that was what he kept telling himself when he spent time with Steph in school but without revealing anything to the blonde-haired girl. Tim felt bad for keeping secrets from his friend, still...everything he had seen during the blood ritual and his dream, everything about the boy…_Jason_ felt so mysterious and overwhelming and huge. It felt like something he couldn’t just simply reveal to a third party just yet. Not even Steph.

He had other close friends he could have turned to for moral support, like Conner, a.k.a. Kon, and Bart, the three of them were inseparable when they were younger, yet after Kon and Bart went to a different high school, meeting his two best friends face-to-face wasn’t as convenient as it had been in the past. 

Not to mention, the same like Steph, neither Kon and Bart had much exposure to the darker side of magic or anything concerning _the dead._

Tim shook his head, he needed time to think and do some research about the subject matter of the afterlife; before he could decide when to tell his loved ones, and how to react to the big secret he had just discovered.

The big secret, namely his discovery of Robin’s true identity. 

The boy paused, taking a moment to correct himself a bit in his own mind. He wasn’t entirely, 100% sure but he was still confident that he did discover the true identity of Robin, Batman’s teenage partner in crime-fighting.

The boy he had seen, _Jason_ was, very likely, Robin.

And he was also possibly Tim’s soulmate too.

Could you blame Tim for feeling overwhelmed?

_Jason…..was probably Robin! But...Robin....appeared to be...you know…dead!_

He still couldn’t wrap his mind around it. 

Sitting on a bench in the schoolyard, Tim opened his notebook and went over all the notes he had about Batman and Robin (there were many notes about them, Tim was a fanboy of a sort for the Duo, you could say). The very first thing which came to his attention was that no one had seen Batman’s partner for nearly half a year. There was no news report about the Boy Wonder, there was also not a single sighting from the civilians in any internet chatroom and forum.

It was bad, it was _very bad_.

Tim couldn’t believe how he or anyone else could just brush off this strange stretch of absence without getting suspicious, but he had been naive during this half a year, thinking there must be a logical, less-frightening explanation for Robin’s absence, perhaps he was injured and out of commission, or perhaps Batman himself had sent the boy off to some mission---nothing truly awful could ever happen to the energized Boy Wonder, hero of every Gotham’s child, right?

Turned out, bad thing---awful thing---did happen to Robin.

Still deep in his own thoughts, Tim saw something moved at the corner of his eye, he was surprised when he sensed another person sitting themselves down on the bench, right next to him. Who? Could it be one of his friends?

Tim turned his head to find out who it was, and immediately he froze. 

It was Jason.

The dead Boy Wonder.

Sitting right next to him on the bench.

This time he looked a little bit _less_ dead. He...actually looked _better_. The cuts and gashes were still there on his face and limbs, but at least the bloodstains were mostly gone.

His eyes were still a pair of dark void, marking him as one of the dead. This time he was out of his blood-stained green and yellow Robin’s custom, instead, he was in a clean casual set of red hoodie and blue jeans. His short black hair was a bit messy but overall Jason looked like any other boy you could walk past in school.

“Nice place you have here.” The taller boy commented as he also turned to meet Tim’s shocked stare.

When Tim failed to reply, Jason flashed him a weak smile and continued. “And it’s all very peaceful too.”

It was in fact very peaceful, they were in the schoolyard, it was a sunny day, with birds singing among the treetops, they could hear the sound of the other students playing ball games on the nearby playground.

“It’s your school, right?”

This time, Tim managed to nod his head, nervously.

After that neither of them seemed to know what to say, they just sat there for a long moment. It was Jason who broke the silence eventually. 

“Did I scare you?” The question came with a sigh.

"...a little." It took a lot more effort for Tim to answer this question, and his voice was dry as a desert. How he wanted to declare he wasn’t afraid but he knew those words would come off sounding untruthful once they came out of his mouth. He had a strong feeling that Jason could tell he wasn’t being truthful even if he claimed he wasn’t afraid, and this would hurt the older boy.

Jason’s face fell when he heard Tim’s answer. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to scare you...”

“It’s nothing...” Tim shook his head.“...it’s...okay.”

The truth was, it wasn’t really okay. He both feared and pitied Jason, at the same time he also wanted to know more about the older boy, and these conflict feelings were eating at him. There were still so many questions...

He _needed_ to understand what had happened to Jason and by doing so, figuring out a way to _help_ the latter. This was very important to Tim. He wanted to help...he had only seen Jason in his eerie ghostly form three times in total and already he had enough...no one should be trapped in the dreadful existence like that.

“It’s okay? Huh?” Jason repeated after the younger boy, he tried to chuckle but the sound he made come out hollow. “Look at me. None of these are really okay, Tim.”

It still felt so strange to hear the older boy uttering his name, it was still saddening to hear Jason talking about himself, well, _not being okay._

Being dead clearly didn’t help you to feel good about yourself and many other things.

But Tim refused to let Jason’s melancholic mood get to him, so he tried to distract the older boy. “Perhaps we can change this. Starting from...you make yourself a little _less_ scary?”

“How?” Jason looked at him for a long moment, before he whispered the honest question. 

“I...don't really know,” Tim admitted. “ You can start by remembering how you used to be when you were…_better_?”

This earned him a burst of bitter laughter from Jason. “You mean when I was _alive._”

“I--I’m so sorry!” Instantly Tim flushed in embarrassment and guilt. Okay, it was only the third time he talked to a dead person, still he should have known mentioning, or even hinting at the time from _Before_ was sensitive. 

“We should stop apologizing to each other so much, kid.” 

Much to Tim’s surprise, Jason laughed, this time the laughter sounded real and natural, and already it was making the taller boy look a lot less scary to Tim, and he meant to tell him just that when suddenly--

The gravity around him seemed to _shift_, leaving Tim disoriented for a moment, then his eyes were snapping open---since when did he close his eyes in the first place?

When he could focus again, he turned, but the seat next to him was empty. There was no sight of Jason.

Was he dreaming again? Or was he not? Which part of this little encounter had taken place in reality, which part of it hadn’t?

Still so many questions.

Tim sighed, putting his notes back into his bag, perhaps it was time to look for his mother’s glass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not very happy with this chapter. I mean, look! They haven’t even talked about their soulmarks yet!


	6. Part 5: How's It Gonna End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once he realized the boy showed absolutely no sign of life, the Joker’s entire body began to shock uncontrollably with laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) I’ve just discovered the fun of using Airtable to do planning for my fanfics. That actually is a lot of fun.  
(2) this chapter is also named after a Tom Waits’ song.  
(3) I’m finally watching the Titans tv series, and I like it. Haha.  
(4) the song that I kept listening to when writing this chapter is [Mejibray’s Victimism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnr0lpZu67A&list=RDMMgnr0lpZu67A&start_radio=1).
> 
> **Warning: character’s death, violence and hints of violence in this chapter, and it might be a bit graphic for some readers.**

Part 5: How’s It Gonna End

Somewhere deep underground, in Batman’s secret hideout, a place known only to the Bat himself and his allies as the ‘Batcave’, Batman sat alone in front of the massive supercomputer he’d built up, staring at the blank screens in front of him. Tonight, even in the safety of his stronghold, the vigilante was still dressed in his full crime-fighting custom. The moving, twisting dark shadows which were part of the vigilante's trademark long cape, which usually was at Batman’s command at will, now twisted around the man’s still form fractiously.

Piercing blue eyes prying up to the blank screens from a pair of lens built into his bat-shaped cowl. He would handle this, being in his full custom and with his shadows---the extending manifestation of his magical power, should---_would_ help him to face what was to come next. 

Gloved fingers silently moved across the control panel, before Batman hit a red button.

Instantly the screens were switched on, cold white light filled the space for a moment before images started to appear on the screens as the video footage began to run.

This footage was shot by a video recorder set on a tripod. Somewhere out of frames, a lightbulb had been turned on and a dark, bare room appeared inside the camera frames, judging from the outlook of said room, it looked like it was inside of a rundown warehouse.

In the middle of this bare room, a boy, who wore a domino mask over his face, dressed in a familiar red and green custom, could be seen being bound securely to a steel chair, he was seemingly unconscious.

Then another figure stepped into the frames, an all too familiar tall silhouette dressed in a bright purple suit, with a crowbar in his gloved hand.

As the purple suited man moved further into the bare room, the bound boy started twitched in his chair as he slowly regained his consciousness.

All of a sudden, the purple figure turned and jumped back to where the video recorder stood, until his pale white face, his grinning wide mouth filled the entire screen.

In Batman’s earphone, he could hear his old enemy exclaimed cheerfully: _“See? I have your boy now and I’ve saved a front-row seat just for you. So, enjoy the show, Batsy!” _

“Sir, you should take some rest.”

At the corner of Batman’s eye, he could see another person stepping out of the shadow of the Cave, revealing the figure of an aged man in a black formal suit. 

Batman didn’t turn to acknowledge the presence of his long-time ally and caretaker, his eyes were again fixed on the screens before him, fixing on the horror fully on display.

The other man, Alfred, sighed deeply before he tried again. “Previously, Young Master Richard had called, Sir.”

The figure sitting before the computer screens didn’t even move a muscle, the older man's words merely fell into deaf ears.

It was already 4:00 in the morning, and even after a long night of patrolling in the Gotham City alone, Batman still chose to go over his…_investigation_ again and again instead of taking a break.

As a healer, Alfred knew there were plenty of magical drugs that could keep a person functioning at their peak physical condition for hours or even days without rest, but in the end, everyone had to pay the price of overusing their own bodies, even the Batman. 

In total silence, the video continued to play, and the purple-suited man quickly walked back to the bound boy and backhanded the boy harshly enough that the latter fell hard to the floor with the steel chair dragged behind him.

The two men in the Cave both knew it was only the beginning.

Mercifully, the sound system in the Cave wasn’t on so Alfred couldn’t hear the screaming and the sound of a child being used as a madman’s punching bag. Still, Alfred knew Batman _could_ hear every sound, every conversation, every scream, every plea for help recorded in this accursed video, through the earphone he was wearing.

Even without the sound, the images in this video were still...no sane person should subject themselves to the torture of viewing it, night after night.

Alfred looked away. He wasn’t young anymore, he had his share of life experiences, he had seen many harsh, terrible things which couldn’t be unseen. Still, the older man couldn’t even bring himself to look at the image of this hateful creature with his crazy grin and bright green hair on the screens.

The Joker.

But the older man couldn’t bear to leave the Cave, dreading the Batman might suffer a nervous breakdown and harm himself as he did just a few nights ago. So he steeled himself and stayed behind, keeping watch as the shadows surrounding Batman twisted around the vigilante like living tentacles.

The video seemed to last hours upon hours. 

On the screen, the clown had started kicking the boy with his heavy boots. 

More bones were broken, at this point, the boy’s face was barely recognizable under all the bloodstains, bruises, and cuts. 

****

Half a year ago, Robin was kidnapped; and Batman couldn’t do anything, couldn’t find his partner.

He had failed the boy so much, his failure was so great that he, the so-called world’s greatest detective, didn’t have a clue of what had happened to Robin up until the Joker left a video for him to find. 

A video that contented footage of Robin’s last moment.

The physical torture and abuse performed by the Joker was unbearable enough, but the worst thing was what the clown had said to the boy during the torture.

Joker told the boy, Batman didn’t care about him enough to go looking for him and rescue him. The madman kept telling the boy he was a failure, too weak to save himself, left alone saving other people. Useless. Not good enough.

To make things even worse, between each torture section, Robin would be left alone in the dark, bound, unable to save himself, left alone to fight his own fear, his own demons and double. He was given no food and water, the only thing he could taste in his mouth was the blood he had choked up from his throat.

But even after such physical and mental torment, the boy still refused to give up Batman’s identity. 

It was incredible for someone so young to act so brave. 

However, Robin’s bravery still wasn’t enough to save him. Once the Joker realized he wasn’t getting any of Batman’s secrets from the boy, he got bored with his captive.

A bored Joker was always worse than an angry one.

It was when he started using the boy merely as a punching bag while the latter had no way to defend himself.

By the end of the video, Robin struggled less and less as the Joker kept beating him with the heavy crowbar repeatedly. 

Then, the boy stopped moving altogether.

The Joker was so far gone in his high that it took a while longer for him to realize his captive wasn’t breathing.

So the man dropped the crowbar to examine the broken body before him. Once he realized the boy showed absolutely no sign of life, the Joker’s entire body began to shock uncontrollably with laughter.

_“I killed Robin! Heheheeeheee! No more Boy Wonder! Heehheeee!!”_

Joker was laughing so hard he literally went breathless as he faced the camera again. _“I've gotten rid of your weakness for you, Batsy!”_

The video ended here.

Half a year ago, when Batman finally rushed to the warehouse used by the Joker, the whole place had already been burned down.

He searched every inch of the ruins, but no corpse had been found in the site or the surrounding area. It was concluded that the Joker must have removed the remains before he set fire to the warehouse, destroying most of the evidence. Where did he take Robin’s remains, what the madman had ever done to it, no one knew. 

To the clown, it was just one more trick to deepen Batman’s suffering.

The bastard didn’t even take any of his goons to accompany him after Robin was captured, so no one could betray the secret, no one knew where did he hide the boy’s remains. He would be the only one to know.

After viewing the video, all of the experts from the Justice League, whom Batman had consulted, all of them agreed there was no way for Robin to survive his injuries.

His adopted child, Jason, was dead.

Batman knew Joker’s main goal had always been to find a way to get at _him_, and Jason suffered the consequence. 

He didn’t even know where the boy’s remains were. It was driving him literally insane to try finding an answer. 

He had failed this child.

So he forced himself to watch the video of his child’s last moments, repeatedly, night after night. There must be some clue in the video footage, a hint to lead him to his lost child.

The footage of a madman torturing a young boy to death made him sick to his stomach, made him want to claw out his own eyes in despair and grief, but he deserved it, all of it. He couldn’t save his boy. He deserved to suffer. It was his punishment for failing Jason.

Batman wasn’t going to rest until he found his lost son, whether it was the boy’s physical remains, his spirit or...whatever it was left of Robin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly don’t want to write about Jason’s death by the Joker’s hands, not at all. But…...it feels necessary for the story, so I had to write it. And yes, in this story, Batman didn’t even find Jason’s remains, at least not yet.


	7. Part 6: Green Grass II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He could only cling to the tiny bit of hope of finding a way out, for the time being.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) For me, the 100% perfect soulmate story is Haruki Murakami’s _‘On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning’_, though the word ‘soulmate’ is never used in this short story. (Here is [a short movie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkdedKCdyUY) based on the story)
> 
> (2) Sorry for the super late update! I have my job to look after and it ate away much of my free time, not to mention I spent too much time lingering on Twitter, etc as well. Plus with all the coronavirus BS going on, things are not easy, so everyone please safeguard yourself. 
> 
> (3) Recently I found I actually possess the Tom Waits’ CD with the song _Green Grass_ and _Dead and Lovely_ in it, these are among one of the few Tom Waits’ CDs that I have, and I was entirely unaware that these songs are among the tracks. Looking back it feels like it’s destiny.
> 
> (4) Special thanks to [CasualOtaku](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasualOtaku/pseuds/CasualOtaku) and [Defective_Avian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defective_Avian/pseuds/Defective_Avian), without their help I can hardly continue this story!
> 
> (5.) I admit my English ability has dropped to zero, excuse my wooden writing and repeated uses of the same words.

Part 6: Green Grass II

When Jason opened his eyes again, he was lying on the bare floor of the rooftop of one of the empty skyscrapers, facing the dark grey sky above him, the semi-darkness and the gloom hovering above the dead city was the only thing greeting him back to the...land of the dead.

Not the real world.

No sunlight. 

No clear blue sky and the fluffy white clouds floating above.

No living people walking about.

No sound of human activities of any sort, just silence. Dead silence.

No Tim. 

Honestly, he wasn’t too surprised to find himself back into the dark mirror image of Gotham again. He was fucking _dead_ after all, and dead people _belonged_ with the underworld, _not_ with the land of the living. 

Finding himself back in the dead city still sucked major ass, for the longest of time he had hoped he could escape from this accursed place, but Fate wasn’t so kind to him, even in death. 

The short time he spent in Tim’s presence had felt _too_ good to be true, every second he had managed to spend once again in the real world felt like a stolen moment, it just..simply didn’t mean to last.

But he did see the boy again, didn’t he? Would it be okay for him to wish to see him again, even wishing to see Bruce and Alfred and everyone else? Was he being greedy for wanting _more_?

Jason did feel it. There had been something, a something...a connection between him and the younger boy, although he still couldn’t figure out the ‘how’ and ‘why’ there could be such a connection between them. He could swear he had never met the boy, didn’t know the latter when he was still...alive. 

This, was the latest mystery he wished to decode, otherwise, he couldn’t make sense of anything anymore. If this dark city were to be his final destination, then why did Tim appear in front of him, interrupting his endless misery? How did he manage to get in touch with the younger boy and then through him, get in touch with the real world again? What was the purpose of their encounters? 

Previously when he ‘woke up’ in the real world, he was shell shocked to find himself mysteriously back in the land of the living for unknown reasons, three things instantly came to his attention: (1) he was inside a school, and he had never been here before (2) the living people around him had all failed to see or hear him, (3) Tim was _there_, among the students who moved about the schoolyard. 

Tim, he was there. Chatting, interacting with other students, going about his business.

Jason watched the smaller boy from a distance, not ready to interact with the boy again. Even though there was a fat chance Tim couldn’t see him---so far, none of the living people he’d encountered ever managed to notice him at all, still he took care to keep himself out of the boy’s sight, hoping to observe the boy for a bit more before Jason decided upon anything. It wasn’t something difficult when you had been trained by Batman himself.

Though it was undeniably a relief when later it was confirmed that Tim, of all people, could actually see him and communicate with him.

His observation confirmed three things: (1) the social circle Tim moved in hardly overlayed with his own when he was still alive, (2) the boy had to be from a well-off family, evidenced by the fact the school his parents sent him to was anything but cheap, (3) for the whole time he was there, Jason hadn’t seen any familiar face in Tim’s school, which pretty much crossed out the possibility of him meeting the younger boy through a mutual friend or an acquaintance in the past.

Tim’s stumbling into his life...his _afterlife_...it couldn’t be just a random thing, right? This mystery felt so huge, so significant, it was literally eating at him even now.

Still, there had been some _up_ sides which happened since Jason’s unlikely encounters with the younger boy. Talking to Tim made him feel better, more like his old self than just a…...miserable dead creature. 

Looking down at himself, Jason once again saw that now the dried blood and the worst of the wounds on his lifelessly pale skin were mostly gone. He was also no longer in his blood-stained ruined Robin custom, but an ordinary-looking and _clean_ hoodie and a pair of jeans.

Currently, at this moment he did feel more like his old self before he was dead. Before he was _murdered_.

Yet, it was unsettling when Jason didn’t know the meaning of this change, having no idea how long it would possibly _last_.

Previously, for a brief moment, he was overjoyed when he found himself magically transported from the horrid dead city into the normal one, able to walk among the livings again. That surely was _a blessing_. But now when he forced himself to think about things more rationally, he knew his experience was far from normal. He hadn’t been able to feel anything during his short break in the land of the living. Jason only managed to feel the ghost of actually having any sensation when he was near Tim.

The fallen Robin couldn’t tell whether he should be worried about this newfound realization, or not.

Plus the tiny droplet of blood he’d consumed, Tim’s blood. He would never have guessed something like this could make him feel so…_alive_, even just for a brief moment. 

In the past, Jason had given up, but now he changed his mind, it wasn’t time to give up yet He would again try to look for a way _out_ from this accursed place.

Finally picking himself up from the floor, Jason moved to the edge of the rooftop and jumped off.

He had learned from hard experiences that no matter how high the building was, the fall still wouldn’t do anything to him except causing damages to his already dead body and a lot of pain (it was strange, but in this afterworld, gravity still existed, and pain very much still existed), it wouldn’t end his miserable existence, plus this time, Jason didn’t intend to fall.

A grappling hook shot up from the small projectile hidden beneath his long sleeve, allowing him to swing from one rooftop to the next.

Thanked heavens, even when electric devices failed to work and there was absolutely no internet connection and radio signal, the few most basic gadgets Batman had given him still _worked_.

This time, instead of sitting around and mindlessly staring at the endless horizon stretching across this land of the dead till he thought he was going insane for real, Robin was on the move again, with a purpose in his mind, a track awaited to be followed, it was almost like back when he was still alive.

In life, Robin faithfully followed Batman in their crusade against crime and together they solved one violent crime and murder mystery after another. In death, the weak tracks of crime and death were still calling to him, this time, instead of ignoring them, Jason allowed himself to answer the calls.

This time, there was no Batman to guide his way, no Nightwing to watch out for him, no ally offering help, no one to catch him when he fell. At the moment he wasn’t even in his Robin custom but it didn’t seem to matter much when there was no one else to catch sight of him. 

It didn’t take long for the track to lead him to a black alley several blocks away from where he began. He looked around, it didn’t take long before he saw what he _knew_ he would find here.

At the end of the alley, ghostly greenlight hovered above an empty spot, as if it was a beacon awaiting his attention.

Jason walked to the dead-end of the alley, he was unsurprised to see beneath the dim green glow, there was a huge pool of dried blood on the ground and splatting all across the brick walls. Telltale thick white tapes forming a human shape on the ground, signifying the exact spot of where a dead body had once laid there before it was discovered and taken away.

Someone was killed here, and their death still left an imprint within this dead city. The green ghostlight always surrounded the spots, telling Jason where to find those imprints. The signs were everywhere, out on the streets, inside apartment buildings or parking lots, in department stores and in schools, _everywhere_. Jason had long learned that similar imprints were rather common in this morbid place and so far he still hadn’t seen any sign of peaceful death, for example, dying on a bed surrounded by relatives; or dying of natural causes, like illness or accident, within the dark city.

It might not be such a surprise, given Gotham’s long history, its massive population and its track record of high crime rate. Still, it could be astonishing to see so much evidence of violence and death littered across the landscape of the metropolis like this.

Perhaps the real Gotham was the same, the only difference was in the real world, all trails of violence and death would usually be removed and wiped clean quickly, but in this dead mirror image of Gotham, those evidence of death and suffering were left unattended, frozen in time into all eternity. He had never found the victims’ actual lifeless bodies, always just bloodstains, damaged personal items, shattered objects and overturned pieces of furniture, a few random items and tools left behind by the GCPD officers and the forensics crews.

Jason hated the sight of these frozen crime scenes, they indicated too much death, too much horror, when he first noticed these gruesome signs of death, an overwhelming sickness crept up to his spirit, paralyzing him, because instantly he was reminded of his own awful death.

The dead city wasn’t simply a lifeless replica of Gotham, it was also one _massive crime scene_.

The hints of violence, misery, death were everywhere in this city. People from all walks of life and of all age groups, all fell victim to crime and met their untimely demise: men, women, children, elderly, _babies_. It had been too much to keep looking at them that after a time, Jason forced himself to ignore all these hints.

In a lifeless city, what could a boy do with his unlimited time which seemingly would stretch on and on into eternity?

He _investigated_ the mysteries, the same as he once did when he was still among the living.

The teen bent down, picking up a small plastic card lying on the ground, caked with dried blood.

“Mary Barron, female, age 24, customer code...” He read the name out loud to no one in particular, his voice echoing off into the empty, still air.

What he discovered was a gym membership card bearing the card owner’s most basic information, completed with one damaged colored picture of the owner’s smiling face, not much of a clue, but it was still better than having no clue at all. Perhaps he still could piece the victim’s story back together, trying to uncover the reason why she died, who’d killed her.

Jason wondered where exactly had this Mary Barron person, or the rest of the other murdered victims, gone to. Did their spirits still linger in this dead city, unseen? Or did they eventually move on from here? At the moment, he was the only ghost who haunted this dead city, but would he also move on someday, eventually? 

He could only cling to the tiny bit of hope of finding a way out, for the time being.


	8. Part 7: Everything Happens To Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What frustrated him even more was the fact that not only he knew nothing about the murderer who killed his soulmate, but also he still didn’t have much clue about his unfortunate soulmate’s identity. 
> 
> Now he had seen the older boy’s face, now he knew he was Robin, he even had a name to work on. Still...the clues he had were still too vague. There must be thousands upon thousands of teenage boys named ‘Jason’ in the city, so where exactly should he begin to look?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) this chapter is named after Chet Baker’s [‘Everything Happens To Me’](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ptX2GLYEfk&list=RD6ptX2GLYEfk&start_radio=1), again this is a really lovely song.
> 
> (2) I hadn't updated for a long time, and no beta for this chapter as usual, sorry I don’t have enough energy to do more checking at the moment.

Part 7: Everything Happens To Me

Like many other youngsters in Gotham, Tim always had an obsessive interest with the city’s resident crime-fighting duo, Batman and Robin.

Batman, the big scary Dark Knight who terrorized the Gotham underworld with his crusade against crime. The shadowy vigilante who fought supervillains, gangs and evil supernatural forces with his impressive combat skill, terrific strategies and overwhelming magical powers.

Robin, the colorful and cheerful younger vigilante who flew and bounced across the rooftops like the bird he’d named himself after, dancing around the villains when they clumsily tried to catch him, aiding Batman to deal with the dangerous criminals they battled, helping innocent citizens to get out of bad situations. 

Batman and Robin, the ever-watchful, fearless guardians under Gotham’s night sky.

Tim was also obsessed with the mystery which was Batman’s true identity, the million-dollars question the world was dying to know the answer to.

The most popular belief was that Batman was in fact a supernatural entity, not a mere human.

The second popular belief was that he must be a very powerful mage, who was strong enough to take on supervillains such as Killer Croc and Two Face on a daily basis, etc. But the problem was, the number of powerful mages known to the public were limited and none of these known mages had ever been outed as Batman.

It was still possible for Batman to hide his power, never revealing his true magical talents when he was…_off duty_ so to speak, though some people would still argue, it would be difficult to hide that amount of power from those who were around him.

Given the two popular beliefs mentioned above, many people even believed Robin was also supernatural, people even came up with the idea about Robin being _a familiar_ to Batman, frozen in time with his eternal youthful look and energy. 

Tim knew better though, he actually had developed a few of his own theories over the years, which he felt actually confident were pretty solid.

He’d always thought it was a silly idea to believe Robin was a familiar because even before he met Jason and recognized who he was, various pieces of evidence had already pointed to the direction that Robin was a mortal made of flesh and blood, there could even be more than one Robin, evidence in the subtle differences of the different Robin's body shapes and fighting styles, etc.

Regardless of what the general public might believe, Robin the Boy Wonder was still just a human, a human that could be hurt or…_killed_.

Tim often wondered how Batman had coped with Robin’s death, what the vigilante had been doing _about_ it.

Then he had to admit even now, he had heard _nothing_, Batman couldn’t possibly broadcast the death of his partner to the general public, otherwise, the news would have taken the whole city, if not the whole country itself, by storm; plus the supervillains would have been beside themselves, rejoicing in the wake of one of their hated enemy’s death.

Logically speaking, Tim thought he could see why would Batman be forced to keep the Boy Wonder’s disme a secret, though it still left a bad taste in his mouth. 

During the recent half years, there had been reports on how Batman become more...brutal, more...unsettling when he was dealing with the criminals. The Dark Knight had gone from breaking arms and knocking off teeth to severely injuring and _crippling_ the most violent of the bunch among the Gotham criminals.

Recently the Gothamites were almost equally fearful toward the supervillains and Batman, some people even believed after years of knocking the wind out of bad guys, Batman had also finally lost his marble and now he himself had also started descending into madness. 

Given the Dark Knight’s recent brutality, who could blame them for having second thoughts like this about Batman?

What no one knew was, Batman’s recent behaviors were very likely the result of the Boy Wonder’s death.

It all made sense to Tim now.

From what Tim had seen, Robin didn’t die due to any natural causes, instead he died in the line of duty, a terrible death. It had to be.

Murdered. 

Batman wouldn’t have been so incredibly _angry_ if he didn’t lose his partner in such a tragic way.

Batman couldn’t air the loss of his partner to the public but he was still grieving Robin in his own way; by clamping down on the criminals even harder than before. 

With this newfound realization, something in Tim changed too. On top of the sadness he felt after realizing his soulmate was dead, before he even had a chance to meet and know him, now he felt…_angry_ about the injustice of it, of his soulmate being robbed from him.

Soulmates were two people who shared a connection between each other, this connection could bind them together through their very own souls; and each person only had one soulmate in their lifetime. Most of the soulbonds between soulmates were romantic, but there had always been cases of soulmates developed into a lifelong friendship, in some cultures, families would welcome a soulmate of their family members as part of their kin as well even without the bond of marriage.

The relationships between soulmates were never meant to be perfect, though. Soulmates still needed to work on their relationship like any other couples, but theoretically, the soulbond enabled a person to find, in another person, a partner who could echo the deepest longings from their souls. 

According to many myths and traditional folktales, no one was born perfect and completed and that was why Fate or the deities had blessed mortals with a gift of soulbond, so everyone could have another person who _knew_ them, so everyone could have a chance to find and _have_ the missing piece of their other half, then, in turn, had a chance to completion and happiness. 

Tim could have this chance too, but now he knew his chance had been robbed from him, by an unknown killer.

Perhaps Batman was feeling a similar kind of grief and rage after losing Robin. No, the Dark Knight’s pain must run far deeper...

Tim was just a boy, just a student, with no significant magical power, no influence whatsoever...still he wanted to do something to help to avenge the fallen Boy Wonder, to bring justice to him. No one should die so young and in such a manner.

It was also about _Jason_ too, not just Robin. Outside of his crime-fighting activities, Jason, as a young boy, must have various dreams for his own future as well.

All those dreams now laid in waste, because someone, some villain, had cut his life short. Throughout his life, Tim never truly felt hatred against someone else, he might get angry with other people or get pissed off by them on occasion, but hatred as an emotion was a foreign entity to him.

But now he _hated_ this unknown killer with a dark burning passion.

What frustrated him even more was the fact that not only he knew nothing about the murderer who killed his soulmate, he also didn’t have much clue about his unfortunate soulmate’s identity. 

Now he had seen the older boy’s face, now he knew he was Robin, he even had a name to work on. Still...the clues he had were still too vague. There must be thousands upon thousands of teenage boys named ‘Jason’ in the city, so where exactly should he begin to look?

The questions were eating at him, keeping him up at night. It didn’t take long for the loss of sleep and his dark mood to start affecting his daily life, but he couldn’t just shut those morbid thoughts away.

***

Outside of the looming mystery of Batman and Robin and his soulmate, something else was also happening to Tim and his friends, something big.

Stephanie finally met her soulmate, in person. Then she’d decided to introduce her soulmate to her friends.

The girl’s name was Cass.

The meeting took place one Sunday afternoon in a skateboard park, and they had planned this friends’ gathering for months, it wasn’t just their usual friends from their own school, Kon, Bart, Cassie, and the others would also attempt. 

Everyone was surprised when Steph showed up, hand in hand with a lithe dark-haired girl by her side.

The girl in question was Cassandra Cain, ‘Cass’ for short. She wasn’t from Tim and Steph’s school or from their usual social circles, instead she was a new girl in town, who had just moved to Gotham City.

Speaking little, Tim mostly listened to the chatters around him, he learned Cass had been adopted by a distant relative and had only moved to live in Gotham recently. Said relatives seemed to be quite well off and they allowed the girl quite a lot of freedom to explore the city on her own.

It wasn’t so unlike his own parents, these well-off relatives of hers. Tim thought to himself absent-mindedly but didn’t air his thoughts to his friends. 

When Tim first laid eyes on Cass, he had a vague feeling that her name was somewhat familiar, and he could almost swear he had heard this name from somewhere else, but he couldn’t remember when and where.

It didn’t make much sense.

But it didn’t matter, what was important was, Cass was Steph’s soulmate and she was _here_, Steph had found her, her very soulmate.

Beside Steph, no one in their group had found their own soulmates yet, therefore everyone was curious to hear how Steph and Cass managed to find each other. 

Flushing red, Steph started to reveal their romantic story.

The two of them first met each other in a self-defense workshop, in which Cass worked as a volunteer assistant. 

Their eyes met for the first time across the training room and Steph instantly knew this was _her_, the girl who was her soulmate, even before she could see the other girl’s soulmark. On the other hand, though Cass couldn’t recognize Steph by sight, she still felt _drawn_ to her in this very first meeting.

Not wanting to spook the quiet, shy-looking dark-haired girl off, Steph had wisely taken the slow approach, befriending her so they could spend time together, first during their time together in the workshop and eventually outside of it. 

The development of their bond wasn’t so easy at first, given the girl’s differences in personalities and interests, yet they always felt comfortable, almost _natural_ when they spent time together. As time past, friendship deepened, attraction grew when eventually they kissed for the first time, Steph felt a ‘click’ from deep within her being, a sense that everything had finally come into place, it was when she confessed about her soulmark.

Cass responded by showing the blond girl her own soulmark, which was, of course, identical with Steph’s.

At this point, everything just fell right into place after that for the two girls.

Tim and the rest of the group were very happy for the new couple. 

***

It was when he got home, Tim finally recalled where he heard about Cass in the past.

It was in the newspaper, among the columns filled with news and gossip about the members of high society. Cass’s name was on it. 

The biggest name in this particular column wasn’t Cass, it was Bruce Wayne, the billionaire. The column was more focused on the billionaire and well-known philanthropist who had adopted yet another orphan and welcomed her home as his adoptive daughter.

This lucky orphan's name was no other than Cassandra Cain.

Her name was only mentioned in passing but it was still very much there. 

Neither Steph and Cass mentioned much about the latter’s adopted family, and none of Tim’s friends were familiar or interested in the gossips of high society, so no one had linked Steph’s newfound soulmate to the adopted child of Bruce Wayne.

Expected Tim.

Instantly Tim reached out a hand to grip his cellphone and used it to open a few news platforms, he needed to check the details out.

After keying in a few keywords, articles and photos started popping up on the screen, and the short article about Bruce Wayne’s new adopted daughter was among the first ones to pop up.

So Cass, his best friend’s soulmate, turned out to be the adopted daughter of one of the richest men in the country. Steph must know, right? Although given Cass’s shy nature and how she was only meeting the rest of Steph’s close friends for the very first time back in the skatepark, Tim could see why Steph didn’t broadcast her soulmate’s family background instantly in front of her group of friends.

It did come as a surprise, but it still didn’t change anything, right? Steph wouldn’t mind if her soulmate’s family was rich or poor…

Then something jolted in Tim’s mind, now he recalled Bruce Wayne had _more than_ one adopted child…

The boy quickly scrolled further down, looking for the older news about Wayne’s other adoptive children...

It took some time, but he finally found another article with the information he wanted in it, it was an article titled **‘Bruce Wayne Took In A New Ward’**, from a few years ago.

He opened the link, and immediately a photo jumped into his line of vision.

The photo below the title of the short article showed two figures, one adult and one youngster, exiting a building somewhere in Gotham uptown. The photo was seemingly taken from a distance, the quality wasn’t good so the images were quite blurry, but there was still no mistaking the boy standing next to Bruce Wayne.

It was a younger version of _his_ Jason, walking beside an older man in a fine dark grey suit, this older man was no other than Bruce Wayne, the well-known billionaire.

Now he finally knew who his Jason was.

Jason Todd, the second ward and later adopted child of Bruce Wayne, owner of the Wayne Enterprises, billionaire.

And Batman.

It all made sense now.

The true identity of Batman had always been the mystery among mysteries, and now Tim thought he had solved it. 

***

On the same night, Batman had been witnessed fighting against two groups of heavily armed gangsters in Crime Alley. 

Eventually, the gangsters were defeated and restrained, ready for the GCPD to pick up back to the police station; a small group of citizens who were caught in the gangsters’ crossfire were guided to safety, unharmed. 

When the crisis was almost over, one of these recused citizens took out his cellphone and took a picture of his rescuer...no…_rescuers_, with his shaking hands.

Then the man posted the blurry photos he took on social media, they had been shared thousands of times overnight.

In those photos, the cowled figure of Batman could be seen standing in the middle of the fallen gangsters, together with the familiar, smaller figure of his younger vigilante partner, Robin.


	9. Part 8: No One Knows I'm Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But _here_ they were and it was no going back. The general public had seen Robin in action tonight and tomorrow the whole city would wake up to the news: Batman and Robin, back to patrol the streets of Gotham _together_ just as the duo always did in the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1): I did consider letting Steph become the new Robin, but I soon realized it would be hard to explain how she got there, so, no Robin!Steph.
> 
> (2) this chapter is named after a Tom Waits' song, from his ‘Alice’ album.
> 
> (3) Had Bruce in this story ever found his soulmate!? The answer is I don’t know! Nothing had been decided about it yet, but I personally am a fan of Batman/Catwoman or Batman/Talia or ‘Batman grows old and dies alone’. LOL

Part 8: No One Knows I'm Gone

Standing among the shadows, Batman watched from his hidden spot at a rooftop as the police handled the aftermath of the gang battle down below, making arrests and cleaning up the mess left behind on the streets. 

Tonight, their mission had been a success, two powerful gangs were ratted out and a major arm-deal for one of those gang was exposed in time, but for Batman there was no satisfaction. For the vigilante, his crusade had never been about gaining praises as a hero or the high of taking the laws and order into his own hands, it was about protecting the helpless people, to prevent tragedy from befalling upon the innocents. 

How could he feel anything remotely close to satisfaction when he'd failed to protect his own child?

How could he find any peace of mind when the Joker still roamed free somewhere in the city, even now?

While the Dark Knight was deep in thoughts, a lithe shadow of yellow and green landed next to him with seemingly weightlessness. Batman’s crime fighting partner had just returned from her task of guiding a group of bystanders to safety. 

Batman turned his head slightly to acknowledge the arrival of the other vigilante, a masked youthful face peering up at him from behind a pair of white lens on a dark green domino mask. Her short dark-blue hair, her lithe form had made it so much easier for her to be passed off as a boy.

Under the cover of the night, it was so easy for people to overlook the differences, it was so easy for one child to be replaced by another, so easy to the point it hurt.

“_Robin._” The title still burned like acid at the back of Batman’s throat whenever he uttered it. “I trust the civilians are now safe?”

The younger vigilante---_Robin_ nodded mutely in response.

Batman should have been proud, Robin had handled her first mission in Gotham without any misstep; she had looked after those frightened civilians with such tireless care. The girl had her heart in the right place, she was a worthy young hero in the making. 

Though at the same time, _Robin_…the weight of this role shouldn’t have dropped onto _her_ shoulders like this. _She_ should have developed her own hero identity instead of taking up a mantle from a poor dead boy. Oracle had even helped designing a brand new custom just for her...she should have taken up the role whenever she felt ready to step up.

But _here_ they were and it was no going back. The general public had seen Robin in action tonight and tomorrow the whole city would wake up to the news: Batman and Robin, back to patrol the streets of Gotham _together_ just as the duo always did in the past.

Just like Hell didn’t break loosen half a year ago and robbed Batman of his Robin.

Just like Robin hadn’t disappeared for the length of half a year.

Just like everything was business as usual. 

It _had_ to be. In order to keep the Mission going, they must keep quiet about what had truly happened to the poor boy who had been the previous Robin…

"We should go." Batman announced as he willed the threads of his shadow to engulf them both. His magical talent allowed him to travel in the shadows with ease, so it took barely any time for the duo to be teleported to where the Batmobile was parked. Seconds later, the duo got into the vehicle and were on their way driving back to the Batcave. 

His shadow magic might be helpful when it came to teleporting for a certain amount of distance, but as to long distance travel, vehicles were still very much came to handy.

During the ride back to their sanctuary, Batman couldn’t help thinking about how things should have been different if only he had done better in protecting those who were under his care.

His adopted daughter should have been introduced properly and then befriended Jason, the two should have started forming a siblings’ bond as time passed; instead of the girl now having to find her way among strangers on her own, having to live in the large, mostly deserted Manor, all by herself.

Originally he did have it all planned ahead, after he got _Cassandra_ away from her abusive biological father and the League of Assassins more than a year ago, he’d wanted nothing more than to help the girl to establish a new life, the same like how he had wanted nothing than to help his first two adopted children.

As an ex-assassin who had been trained since birth and lived a highly isolated life, knowing hardly anything about the outside world expected of the tiny bits and pieces the League had thrown at her; there was a lot of adjustment to be made and healing to be progressed for young Cassandra. Therefore, instead of bringing her back to Gotham with him immediately, he had settled the girl in a safe but remote location in Europe, a quiet small town which didn’t draw any attention; letting her unlearn what the League had forced upon her, to learn how to interact with people, to start having therapies to overcome her traumatizing past experiences. 

With the shadow of the League of Assassins and her father still looming over the girl--for David Cain still very much wanted to get his most prized soldier back, Batman had kept Cassandra’s identity and her location a complete secret, informing only a few members from the Justice League. As for his plan to take the girl under his wing, he only revealed it to Nightwing, Oracle and Alfred.

He had planned to reveal this new to Jason too, eventually. He’d planned to break the news when Cassandra was truly safe and everything had been settled. 

Now with Jason’s demise, his chance to break the news to Jason about the arrival of a new family member, a sister, was lost forever.

Cassandra should have been able to stay in Europe longer, to at least finish her speech therapy with the experts he hired, it would have helped to let her learn how to speak more fluently, it would have helped to let her have a chance at living the life of a normal girl.

Not that Cassandra was invalid the way she now was, she wasn’t. She was just _different_. But as an adult, Batman knew how people could be judgmental and harsh toward others who were different from them. The young girl already had enough hardship and pain in her past, he didn’t want to add even more needless pressure on her shoulders. 

But now she had none of these chances for adjustment and healing. Now Cassandra had to start her new life in Gotham, before she could be fully prepared.

Because of _him_ and the Mission, his failure, his duty as Batman.

It could be argued that the girl did take up the mantle voluntarily, out of her deep concern for her guardian's well being and a sense of duty to help getting Batman back to his own two feet. It could be argued that he never forced the girl to take the mantle up, still deep down, the whole situation was very much _his_ fault. This girl should have her own custom and mantle, should have been making her own name, instead _his_ failure had left her no other choice but to take up the old mantle from a dead brother.

Cassandra always had an urge to help those who were in need, once she realized how troubled and _fractured_ Batman truly was after losing Robin, she didn’t hesitate to step up and put on the custom. _Batman needed a Robin_ That was what she claimed, and there was no talking her out of the idea, once her mind was made up. 

He owed this girl...his daughter so much.

The Batmobile shot through a hidden underground tunnel which connected the Batcave to the outside world, before it came to a stop almost just as quickly when it hit its parking spot within the cave. 

Seconds later, the car door opened on itself, Batman was about to exit when Robin spoke up suddenly.

“_Bruce._”

The unexpected call of _his name_ brought Batman back to the present. Batman turned to his partner and was surprised to see Robin had removed her mask and was now watching him with concern in her clear dark brown eyes.

The girl place her gloved hand on her chest as she spoke again. "Cass. Okay.”

Batman had interacted with the girl often enough that he could understand what she was trying to express. She wanted him to know she was okay, and in turn she wanted _him_ to get ridded of his gloomy thoughts concerning her future. 

He knew the girl was worried about him, she was trying to cheer him up even now.

“You. Okay too. Have to.”

Bending down, he patted the girl on her head, a gesture of acceptance and affection. How much he wished he did the same more often with his two adopted sons in the past.

He had already driven one child away, then failed another so badly, now he couldn’t fail this child.

“Met my soulmate, here.” The smallish girl gave a small smile. “Cass. Okay.”

He had also met this other girl who happened to be his adopted daughter’s newfound soulmate, Stephanie seemed to be alright, he had done a background check on her as soon as Cass told him about finding her soulmate by chance and, much to his great relief, there wasn’t anything suspicious about the girl in question and her background.

So far, Stephanie didn’t know any of _their_ secrets. Vigilantism and romantic relationship had always been a tricky business. Perhaps Cassandra would reveal her secrets to her soulmate at some point, or perhaps not, they had never discussed so far ahead when it came to such a personal matter concerning the girl and her soulmate.

The Dark Knight embraced the girl with fatherly warmth, and the girl hugged back, and it was all the comfort he could ever hoped to possess at the moment.

How he wish he could keep all of his children safe for as long as he could but he knew it was an impossible dream, the world they lived in was harsh, the battles they faced even harsher, what had happened to _Jason_ proved how much he had failed at safeguarding the people he loved.

Too many things were now hanging in the balance, he couldn't let them fall and come crashing down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The creation of a new hero identity for Cass had been mentioned in this chapter, but which one should be hers? Black Bat? Batgirl? (but wasn’t Babs the first Batgirl once, in this AU world?) I don’t think Orphan will be a good choice. So, what do you think?
> 
> Plus what is Cass’ magical talent anyway, I haven’t figured it out yet!
> 
> ...and Stephanie's family seems to be okayish in this world, I'm glad.
> 
> One more thing, here is a big question, do you think the Joker in this story has magical power, or not? Any opinion?

**Author's Note:**

> I am not even sure should this story be a No-Cape AU or one with Cape, will figure it out later. *sighs*


End file.
